


This, and other disasters

by Cards_Slash



Series: Underbelly [3]
Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, Meet the Family, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 08:38:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared's mother has finally managed to corner him into bringing Jensen down for Thanksgiving. That goes, unsurprisingly, just about as bad as he thought it would.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This, and other disasters

Jared’s mother was that mom that every kid was jealous of when he was in grade school because she was the cool one that showed up with cupcakes and cookies and other treats on holidays and birthdays and passed out gift bags to everyone. By middle school she was uncool with kids that cared more about reputations than treats and by high school she was officially an embarrassment with her unending sincerity and sweetness. He managed to muscle through the worst of his idiocy regarding her love for him and the way she chose to express it by being involved in his life and making cookies for all of his friends constantly. (And he was an idiot about it for the longest time.) When he met-and-left his soul mate in his first year of college and ended up transferring back to his own state with practically no credits to speak of but with a huge debt on his name, she had been his champion, shoving his father’s wrath and complaints aside and protecting him and his (frankly, honestly,) completely shattered soul. 

When he said he was going to go into English and write stories for a living she had been skeptical but supportive while his father and his endlessly practical lifestyle had been skeptical and objection-laden. But when he all but flunked out of college for the second time just months before he was due to graduate, ended up having to take courses over again and never-answered-her-calls, his mother had finally managed to work up her own head of steam about how he was stupid (at last). He explained it away with love troubles and she cooled off again with stern reminders that his future was worth more than his heart or his dick and then she wished him the best.

(And his father, of course, made snide asides about how he was just being a fool about some boy and it was going to ruin his whole life. Jared accepted it because he was being a fool, but Jensen wasn’t some boy but his soul mate and a werewolf and maybe his father would have done better with a daughter than a son because he seemed entirely confused about how to relate to Jared so he just treated him like the sitcom dad treated his grown daughter.)

\--

Six months later, like six months after Jensen finally came back, six months after he finally-finally started picking up the pieces of his life, he had run out of good-or-bad excuses about why his parents hadn’t met Jensen yet.

His father said, ‘he must not be worth much if you can’t even get him to come home with you for Christmas’. 

His mother said, ‘honey, I know you said he was shy and you weren’t rushing into this but it’s been almost two years and you’re being lapped by a lame snail. I’m starting to think that this Jensen person is just something you made up because you were ashamed to admit you had a drug addiction’.

And Chris, who was always in hearing distance, heard that choice comment from his mother he had literally fallen off the chair on the back porch and laughed so hard he was very nearly blue in the lips when Jared came out to glare at him. Jensen had been out there too, head cocked to one side (still wearing dirty-work-clothes) like he didn’t understand what was wrong with Chris’ brain.

“Oh God,” Chris had wheezed, “oh _God_ , I love your mother.”

Any given day, Jared loved his mother too. But two weeks before Thanksgiving, just about the time Jared was reaching a plateau in weird (a few spare months after the first time Alona went into heat and Jared had experienced first-hand exactly what every horny dog in the world went through twice a year) his mother cornered him into agreeing to a disaster.

\--

It went like this: Jensen was a wolf and yeah he did a passable imitation at human when he needed to but he still forgot or didn’t understand a third of any of the things he saw or heard. He could keep his human skin-and-shape all day long out in the sun with other strong-manly-men but it nagged at his ragged nerves so that by the time he got home he was shedding filthy clothes at the door and dropping to four paws with no stop-gap. 

Jared adjusted because he had no choice—it was spend the rest of his life being constantly unnerved (by choice) or accept the fact that his soul mate was always going to be more comfortable in shaggy fur and a panting tongue than twisted into the odd-shaped human form. He was used to Jensen’s non-verbal questions, comments and requests and moved to answer, respond and accommodate without pause. 

So there he was, in the living room, smelling of gravy (and after all this time, he was finally proven right about how he thought it would drive Jensen crazy) with his apron thrown to one side and a stack of unopened rejection letters from publishers keeping him company on the side-table. His phone was tossed in with the debris and he didn’t even waste time craning his head to see Jensen-and-Chris when they came in. Chris made noise, all loud and brash, cursing at stupid humans and the oppressive rub of human clothes before he headed off toward the shower and Jensen dropped everything into the basket by the door and was click-clack dog-claws on the floor toward the kitchen. 

“Bring me some chips,” Jared shouted after him. He sank himself further into the couch and eyed the still unopened rejection letters while he tried to work up the nerve to see what publishers decided he wasn’t worth the money. He was all set to open one when his phone rang and he snatched it up as a (good as any, really) excuse not to open his mail. His mother’s smiling face greeted him from the screen and he wavered one-two rings before he answered it.

“Jared,” his mother said in that warm, solicitous way that meant she was going to extract promises from him.

Jensen came padding back into the living room, water dripping from his muzzle and bag of chips caught in his jaws. He tossed the bag (and flung water) on the couch and then hopped up after it. He sat on his shaggy ass and looked right at Jared, nostrils expand-and-contracting as he scented the air and his tail started wagging at the spicy-milky scent of gravy on his clothes. 

“Hi Mom,” Jared said. He meant it more to warn Jensen off than to actually say hi to her and Jensen didn’t seem to care much. He moved closer, body stretching out and nose catching at Jared’s shirt and pulling it away from his skin.

“So honey,” his mother said, “your father and I were talking and we’ve decided that this year we’re going to host the Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Oh?” Jared said, “I thought Aunt Lydia was going to do it this year.” (He got e-mails from the family that were like newsletters keeping him in touch with everyone in the entire universe that may or may not have been related to them by blood or marriage.) 

“She was, but you know how badly her hands shake,” he didn’t actually, “and it’s such a burden on her ever since Tawney moved out. I mean she’s all alone and her house is so small. So I offered to host and she seemed relieved. I’m going to have her over to help make pies.” Yes because a professional baker needed help making pie. “It’ll make her feel good and she does make an excellent apple pie.” Of course she did.

Jensen was licking his shirt now; one paw trying to grab at the bottom of it to keep it still while he left hot-wet streaks where his tongue was worrying at whatever drip of gravy had soaked into the fibers. Jared tipped his head back to make room for him and dropped a hand down to pull the shirt taut against his chest because he had a hard enough time explaining the odd bruises he got without having to add dog-scratches. 

“Let me just get to the point,” his mother said, “you know how I babble when I’m excited so I’m just going to say it—your father and I made _sure_ to keep your room free so that you could bring Jensen down with you and he can meet the whole family.”

“What?” Jared asked. Jensen was really working at the shirt like he could milk gravy out of it, and Jared was getting kind of hazy on the phone conversation because Jensen’s broad-flat tongue was up-down sand-paper over his nipple and it was sending all these confusing bad-good messages ricocheting down his body. He reached up to shove Jensen’s head back and that worked for a minute. “Mom, I don’t think—”

“Jared, honey,” his mother said, “I know that it’s your life and I know that you’re not obligated to do this for me but, sweetheart, I want you to think of all the times I’ve stood up for you when everyone thought you were out of your mind. I’ve been making excuses for you for almost two years because I respect that you want to take it slow but I’m not going to do it anymore. I haven’t even so much as heard Jensen over the phone or seen a picture of him.” (Actually she had, only Jensen was a wolf at the time and in the distance playing catch with Alona at the park.)

“Yeah but Mom, the whole family? I mean it’d be bad enough with just you and Dad—“

“Your father wants what’s best for you, Jared.”

“—And you want to add in the _whole_ family. Mom that’s like throwing a person into the middle of the ocean to see if they can swim.” 

“Don’t you want to know if he can swim, sweetie?”

Jensen came back, sneaking in slowly so Jared didn’t have time to realize that he was even trying to get back before he was suddenly there, giant head against his chest and sniffing at the most fascinating stink of gravy on the crotch of his pants. (God, and what was his life with his soul mate nuzzling his crotch just to suck gravy out of his sturdy standard-issue work pants?) 

“Of course I do, Mama,” Jared said. 

Jensen dug his nails into Jared’s thigh and pulled his leg open, scratched at him with a curious noise before he started really digging his tongue in to drag the gravy taste out. Jared put a hand on his solid shoulder and shoved him off the couch but that did almost nothing to deter him, just gave him a better angle to get at the gravy all along his zipper line. 

“So you’ll bring him?” his mother asked.

“I don’t know I have to—” Jared said. He tried shoving Jensen’s head back but he was getting hard and hot all over his body and his mate was all instinct in animal form, too intent to be denied now. “I’ll ask him and—“

“Jared,” his mother said, “you promise me right now that I’ll see you and the love of your life on Thanksgiving.”

Jensen had shifted his focus from the gravy to lapping the length of Jared’s hardening-dick and his tail went from gently swishing to madly wagging (God, and this was his life). 

“Fine Mama, I promise,” Jared said, “I’ve got to go.”

“Bye honey,” she said like she was sweet apple cider before she hung up. Jared tossed the phone over his head and it clattered to the floor behind the couch before he let himself be dragged off the couch by Jensen’s claws-and-then-hands. By the time he was laid on against the floor he’d forgotten all about his mother because he was too busy trying to get the fuck out of his pants.

\--

It was a day later, at his computer, when he remembered what he’d promised. His mother sent him all the details on the Thanksgiving dinner and when she would be expecting him and when everyone else was due to arrive. She urged him to come a day early to give Jensen a chance to meet just her and his father. 

“Oh fuck me,” Jared said.

Jensen perked his head up from where he was snoozing on the bed, ears forward and tail giving a hopeful wag against the mattress. He eyed the red numbers on the alarm clock and then huffed a disgruntled noise and put his head back down. (They’d made a promise to Gen that they wouldn’t fuck in the house between ten PM and seven AM Sunday through Thursday.)

“No that wasn’t literal,” Jared said, “fucking son of a bitch.” He slapped his laptop shut and shoved himself up. He headed downstairs to see if Chris was back from his early-early morning run yet and almost tripped over Alona sleeping at the bottom of the stairs. She barked at him for being an idiot and then picked up her dog bed in her teeth and moved it to the side. “Don’t give me that look, don’t sleep on the stairs.”

He followed the smell of raw meat and cigarette smoke to the back yard and found Chris licking his fingers and reading the newspaper at the plastic table outside. There was a white foam tray that used to have ground hamburger on it sitting next to him with the wrinkly plastic wrap balled up on it.

“You can’t eat raw meat out here,” Jared said, “fuck—aren’t you the one that told Jensen that?”

“I also told him not to eat the neighbor’s cat,” Chris said, “and nobody’s awake.”

“He ate the neighbor’s cat?” Jared asked. He dropped into a chair and stared off toward the neighbor’s fence. They had this annoying tabby cat that liked to come over and dig in their yard and shit on their porch. He’d chased the thing off a few times with a broom and once or twice as a giant wolf but—

“I’m just saying, the cat’s been missing for a week.”

“He ate the neighbor’s cat,” Jared said, “or might have eaten it—my soul mate eats cats.”

Chris looked up from his crossword long enough to look at him and then dropped his pen and sat back in his chair like he was now ready to hear all of Jared’s problems. “Just skip ahead to where you tell me what’s wrong.”

“I promised my Mom that I’d bring Jensen down to meet my family.”

Chris went all blank in the face at that.

“And like—yeah, sure, of course I should take him to meet my family because he’s my soul mate and that’s what you do when you’re a human but my Dad’s this kind of alpha-male type that likes to be in charge and my whole freaking family is going to be there to see him and there are like a billion of them and they all like to touch you and hug you. Everyone smiles and _laughs_ and can you imagine Jensen in the middle of a group hug with twenty noisy women that want to know everything about him and he can’t even tell a joke.”

“He can tell a joke,” Chris said.

“A _stupid_ joke!” Jared shouted.

“So tell her that he can’t make it,” Chris said, “or you know, that he’s a socially inept werewolf that was raised in the woods by a psychopath dictator.”

“You’re not serious,” Jared said.

“Clearly I’m not serious,” Chris said, “but I can’t help you.”

\--

Gen sympathized with him, “yeah,” she said, “that’s really going to suck. I mean your Dad kind of gets on my nerves and I don’t even have the impulse to go for the throat like Jensen does.”

Sandy thought it was funny, “oh, God, can you see Jensen and your father? If he tries to piss on him can you take a picture? Please? I mean, I literally will pay you a hundred dollars for a picture of that.”

Alona seemed confused, “why does it matter?” was all she said. Jared considered explaining to her but even if she understood the theory of humanity she was more a wolf than her brother and it would have been nonsense and babble to her.

Jensen, when he joined the conversation already in progress, said, “what do they want me to do?”

“Meet them,” Jared said, “it’s just—when you’re with someone for a long time you introduce them to your family because they’re a part of your family now.”

Jensen considered that very carefully and then looked over at Chris who shrugged and then back at him. “I could meet them,” he said, “you could tell me what to do.”

“Oh sure,” Jared said, “except that they’re going to ask you where you’re from and what your family’s like and you’ll say something like ‘the wilds of north east America and I recently slaughtered my father to take over the pack’.”

“Oh, and when they ask him what he likes to do in his spare time he can say ‘kill cats and lick my own balls’,” Chris added gleefully.

“Or!” Sandy said, “run through the woods naked and fuck your son on the rug by the back door.”

“We’re throwing that rug away, I swear to God there’s no saving it anymore,” Gen said. She grabbed her toast out of the toaster and slathered it with butter. 

“You could tell me what to do,” Jensen repeated. He didn’t like to be mocked or made fun of and his indignation was on his face and the in the tightening tense of his shoulders. They weren’t much in the way of a usual pack but he was still the alpha and it showed in the way everyone moved around him (even Gen and Sandy). “I’m good at pretending.”

“Yeah but this isn’t pretending,” Jared said, “this is like—you have to be able to make small talk. You have to laugh at bad jokes, you have to deal with my father and trust me when I say this—you will not like my father.”

“Why don’t you just take Chris?” Gen asked, “he can pretend to be Jensen.”

“Ha,” Chris said, “no because the real Jensen would castrate me with his teeth. Look, Jared, the worst thing that happens is that your family doesn’t like him. Boohoo.”

“Actually,” Sandy said, “the worst thing that could happen is Jensen wolves out in front of everyone and kills Jared’s father because he can be a very annoying dick face at times.”

Jensen looked half-offended at that statement until Jared sighed, “yeah. I’m telling you, every time I think about it—that’s how this ends.” 

They were all silent on the matter for a matter of minutes and then Jensen said, “we can take Chris. He can be our dog.”

“Wait, what?” Chris asked.

“How will that help?” Jared asked, “I mean what is having a giant dog with us going to do? Besides possibly freak out my entire family?”

“What if Chris doesn’t want to be your pet and translator?” Chris asked. Sandy was laughing at him and Gen quietly trying not to. “I am not a pet.”

“Translator?” Jared repeated. He had seen the wolves trade complex ideas through ear flicks and tail wags before but he couldn’t imagine that would work in the situation they were headed into. There was a difference between finding and killing a group of hunters and navigating the murky waters of familial interaction. Still, it was a better idea than— “Actually, that might work.”

“Fuck you,” Chris said, “I’m not your pet.”

\--

In the end, Chris gave in (because they all knew he would) but only after Sandy promised him sexual favors. He went and got his own collar and a leash but informed Jared that if he even so much as thought of putting a leash on him he’d bite his balls off. 

On the ride down, Chris laid in the back seat smoking like he’d never have another cigarette in his life and reading the heaviest book Jared had ever seen outside of college. As soon as they hit the city limits, Chris shucked out of his superfluous boxers and shifted to a wolf, rolled on his belly and used his paws and tongue to keep turning pages. When they turned down the street leading to Jared’s house, Chris kicked the book on the floor and sat up in the back seat, head out the open window and doing an Oscar-worthy imitation of a real dog. 

“What are your parent’s names?” Jensen asked.

“Uh, Mr and Mrs. Padalecki,” Jared said, “until they tell you otherwise.”

Jensen nodded.

\--

For a few brief moments, Jared was sure that they’d managed to miss his parents and were going to be able to avoid the whole thing for another day but just after he’d given up on knocking on the front door (it was locked), his parent’s car pulled up in the drive. Chris was out in the front yard, rolling in the grass because he liked the smell of it (and because he smelled like cigarette smoke) and Jensen was standing to his side with his hands shoved into his pockets. 

“Here we go,” Jared said.

His mother all but ran across the yard to get to him, skirting away from the giant wolf sitting up to watch her and taking the steps at record speed to get her arms around him. His mother was short, like he had to all but bend in half to hug her short and she had vibrant brown hair and a cheerful face that made every terrible truth seem manageable. She pulled him into a hug two years overdue and he let himself be smothered by it and the smell of her cookie-sweet perfume. When she let him go, she straightened her blouse and swept stray hair away from her face as she turned to look at Jensen.

“Mom,” Jared said, “this is Jensen.”

“Oh my,” his mother said, “you are just as good looking as Jared told me. Look at you.” She reached out a hand to touch him and Jensen went still like growling-dog-still and she reacted the way any person with sense did and stopped. “Excuse me,” she said, “I always forget my manners. I touch people, sweetie, so if you don’t want me to just remind me because I know I’m going to. I’m Sophie and that’s my husband Jerry.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jensen said. 

“Oh,” his mother said, “well—oh, the door is locked. Jerry!” She hustled back over to his father who was carrying groceries up from the car and almost tripping over the stones in the walkway from how he was watching Chris watch him. 

“Is that your dog?” his father asked him.

“Yes,” Jared said, “I thought I told you I was bringing him? I couldn’t find anyone to keep him for the weekend and he’s such a good dog.”

“That’s not a dog,” his mother said nervously. She even giggled when Chris stood up to his full height and came over to them. He took a place next to Jensen and cocked his head at them, seemed like he was trying to read their minds before he let his tongue loll out and started panting. “That’s a wolf, honey, look at his teeth—I’m just not sure that he’s safe around the children.”

“Oh he’s wonderful with kids,” Jared said, “please Mama? I can’t just leave him out in the car the whole weekend. He’s a really great dog.”

“You must be Jensen,” his dad said when he got to the top of the steps. He held out his free hand and Jensen took it (how Chris had taught him) and his dad squeezed his hand as he shook it and Jensen let him do it with a friendly enough smile on his face. “I’m Jerry. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Jensen said, “I’m sorry it’s taken so long.”

“Aren’t you a dear?” his mother said, “alright the dog can stay but if he frightens the children you’ll have to keep him outside or something. What’s his name?”

“Whitelaw,” Jared said, “and he really is a sweetheart.”

\--

Chris jumped on the bed as soon as they made it up to Jared’s room. It had been converted to a guest room years ago but his parents still called it his. Jensen stood just inside the open door and looked around like he was expecting something more and Jared dropped their bags on the floor and sagged back into the chair in the corner.

“Dude, you cannot get on the furniture in the house. You shed.”

Chris turned a circle on the bed and dropped down to his belly with a look at Jared that seemed like some kind of insult. Then he shifted to a more comfortable slouch and barked at Jensen.

“Oh, he’s not going to bark all the time is he?” Jared’s mother shouted from downstairs.

Jared groaned and Jensen looked out toward the hallway and Chris rolled over onto his back with great dramatics. “No Mama!” Jared shouted.

\--

Supper, after they spent a good twenty minutes ‘settling in’ was on the small kitchen table with his mother serving leftovers and his father holding a one person conversation about the current affairs that Chris listened to as attentively as a dog could without rousing suspicion. Jensen nodded along to the cadence of his father’s words and Jared interjected comments when he thought they seemed relevant. His mother said blessing and Jensen ducked his head with them.

“So,” his mother said, “I can’t remember if Jared’s ever told me, but where are you from?”

“Vermont, originally,” Jensen said, “but I’ve moved around a lot since I left.”

“Oh?” his mother said.

Jared cleared his throat and took a drink of tea while Jensen blinked at his mother like he just didn’t understand what more she needed to know than that. “He wanted to travel and see the sights,” Jared said.

His father frowned at that (at the notion of travelling around before settling down, maybe but mostly), “Jared, I’m sure Jensen can talk for himself.”

It was funny how his father would think that because it wasn’t really true at all and the more that Jensen talked, the more likely they were to know that his vocabulary was gleaned off television reality shows and listening to Chris curse. (Maybe a little more than that, but not much, at least not fluently.) 

His mother, of course, cut into his father’s objection with, “Jerry, leave him be. He’s already said that Jensen’s shy. It’s okay to be shy, honey, we’re all so loud we need a nice quiet person around.”

“Jared’s right,” Jensen said. He wasn’t even looking at Jared’s father and that could have been a really good or a really bad sign (and from the slow-building ball of dread in Jared’s gut he was siding with ‘bad’). “I had lived in the same place all my life and it was…stifling.” Jensen shrugged, “I wanted to see more of the world. I met Jared after I’d just left home and I wasn’t ready to settle down and be in one place yet. I kept looking for a new place to call home but I didn’t find it until I found him again.”

Jared was going to die at his mother’s kitchen table, face first into a plate of leftovers. He glanced over at his father who looked suitably impressed and then at his mother who looked like she was about to melt out of her chair over how lovely Jensen was and then to Chris who was wolf-grinning at him. Then he looked at Jensen who was looking at him with a smile that looked nothing at all like his smiles usually did and Jensen put his hand over Jared’s and Jared was going to _die_ because they just might pull this off. He leaned in and kissed Jensen and blushed and cleared his throat. “So there’s that.”

“That’s just so sweet,” his Mom said.

“And smart. I mean—you had no friends around here when Jared came back from college but you were very smart to know that you weren’t ready. How old are you?”

Jensen started for a minute and then said, “twenty-eight.”

“Twenty-eight,” his father repeated and weighed the worth of it. He let it simmer in the air and took a couple more bites of his dinner before he said, “and you work in construction?”

“Yes,” Jensen said.

“I’ve always admired a man that works with his hands,” his mother said, “there are so many people that look down on a man that works with his hands—but where would we be without those men? I mean really.” She looked right at her husband, “isn’t that right?”

“Yes dear,” his father said.

The rest of dinner passed in casual conversation of Jared’s family and where his cousins-and-uncles-and-aunts-were. Jensen managed to scrape by with just agreeable or disagreeable noises and nods and smiles. Chris seemed to cue these with his ears and tail and still managed to appear like nothing more than a curiously large dog.

\--

After dinner, Jared begged off a movie by saying that they’d been up since early-early morning and just wanted to take their dog for a walk and turn in. (Never mind it was barely eight o’clock.) Up in his room while he was getting the leash, Chris stood there and gave him that look that reminded him if he even so much as thought about it he’d lose his balls.

“There are leash laws,” Jared said. Jensen was still investigating the room like he expected something and happened to glance back over to see Chris’ reaction to that.

“I wouldn’t put the leash on him,” Jensen said, “he’s very serious about biting you.” Then he tucked his hands into his jacket and took the leash. “They would carry one of these when we first came to the cities. I never understood why.”

“Don’t say things like that,” Jared said, “not here. Ok, let’s go.”

It was late dusk, getting dark, and with only the streetlights to cast light on the sidewalks, they managed to get away with walking a giant dog without a leash. There was barely anyone out anyway; most of the people were tucked away into their houses getting ready for relatives and Thanksgiving.

“Jensen,” Jared said, “thank you.”

Jensen nodded. If he had any more thoughts than that he didn’t share them and Jared let the silence drag on because he felt comfortable in it.

\--

Jared woke up to a wolf burrowed under his back and Chris sitting on the floor (butt-ass-naked) reading a book and irritably rubbing his fingers together. They’d left the cigarettes in his car because he wasn’t about to tell his parent’s he’d taken up the habit and because Chris wasn’t supposed to ever be a man. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

“I’m reading,” Chris whispered back, “both of your parents are still sleeping so unclench your ass muscles.”

“I’m pretty sure the fact that my boyfriend is a wolf and my dog is a man is a good enough reason to clench my ass muscles,” Jared snarled back at him, “we had this whole agreement.”

“I’m keeping up my end of it,” Chris said, “I got your girlfriend through dinner, didn’t I? Also, if you don’t find me something to eat that isn’t fucking kibble I’m going to eat your dad. He’s a douche anyway. What is it with human guys that they have to try to prove how in control they are by being douches?”

“I’m sorry, I’m trying to listen to you but I kind of zoned out after ‘I’m going to eat your dad’.” Jared threw the covers off and sat up on the bed. The old springs gave a shrill squeak and Jensen fumbled awake and looked disgruntled and unhappy to have been bothered. “There will be no eating of my relatives.”

“I’m fairly sure that Jensen won’t eat him. Maybe gut him—come on, tell me you couldn’t feel that last night.”

Jared rubbed his face and then let out a long sigh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Look, all we have to do is get through today and then one of us can get violently sick and we can leave. Maybe Jensen has a rare cranberry allergy or some shit.”

“Or maybe you should fuck,” Chris said, “but after you get me food since I’m stuck in here with you so Mommy dearest doesn’t get all upset to see me on her couches.”

“I’m not fucking him at my parent’s house,” Jared hissed. He was leaning half off the bed at that point and Jensen had started wagging his tail as soon as Chris mentioned it and then stopped abruptly when Jared objected. 

“You think they haven’t already figured out that you’re having wild ass sex with him?” Chris asked. “They do. I don’t care. Just find me some food.”

“Whatever,” Jared said, “when I get back—you are a dog and you are a man.” He shoved himself up and headed out. His parents were both still asleep and he tiptoed himself through a quick shower and downstairs to raid the closet and fridge for food. He took enough to feed Chris but not so much of just one thing that it’d be outrageous.

\--

“How did you sleep?” Jared’s Mom asked as soon as they were down the stairs and within hearing distance of the kitchen. She was already in apron, flour on her hands with a table full of ingredients spread out all around her. 

Jensen smiled, “like a baby.” (Or a wolf, whichever.)

“There’s coffee in the pot and some fresh turnovers ready to come out of the oven,” she said, “Jared could you get those for me?” She didn’t even turn to make sure he was doing what she asked, just dove into her cooking. “Your aunts are going to be here in just a little bit. I want you boys to be sure to be on your best behavior.”

“Yes Mama,” Jared said. He set the pan on the stove and pointed Jensen over to where the cups were kept. 

\--

His aunts attacked Jensen like vultures at fresh prey. They howled about how gorgeous he was and how polite and how unusually quiet. They chattered among themselves about how they’d just have to fix that and they had their hands all over him, touching his face and hugging him and squeezing his arm and reassuring him that the Padalecki’s would not let him go the rest of his life with a sensible amount of polite quiet.

(That would be a shame, it would.)

Chris huffed at them and they turned their attack on him. He was, apparently, the best behaved dog they’d ever seen, his fur was the softest, his blue eyes the most unusual and he was just so intelligent. (You could see that on his face while he silently called them all stupid to their faces.)

Then they were banished to the living room which ended with Jensen sitting on the couch stiffly while Jared flipped through channels on the TV trying to find something to watch. Chris demanded they watch the news and Jared figured he owed him so he kept it there.

“Where is your father?” Jensen asked after a while. He hadn’t managed to loosen up any, sat straight upright with his hands flat against his thighs and looked as much like an uncomfortable statue as a man.

“He’s going to pick up a few of my cousins,” Jared said, “they’ll be back in an hour and then we’ll have to go outside and play football—oh shit,” he said, “do you know how to play football?”

Jensen blinked at him. And then said, softly, “I can play anything with rules.”

\--

So, unsurprisingly, teaching a werewolf the random rules of backyard football was damn-near impossible. His mother was so busy in the kitchen she didn’t even notice that Jared disappeared up to his room to draw quick diagrams and even then Jensen seemed confused. Chris shifted back to a human to translate Jared’s attempts to explain into terms that Jensen understood and they just barely escaped being discovered by his mother. Jared did the first thing he could think of when he heard her steps in the hallway and yanked Jensen into a kiss that knocked them both back against the little desk in the room and scattered pens across the floor. His mother smiled when she cleared her throat and told him that his cousins would be there soon.

\--

Jared had five boy cousins that were damn near the same size as him. Then his uncle, his father and one or two girl cousins that liked to play football with them just because girls-could-do-that. They even brought changes of clothes with them so they wouldn’t get their eating-food clothes dirty. 

“Just remember,” Jared said quietly, “try not to actually tackle anyone.”

It went alright at first because his cousins were slightly friendlier than his father so they ribbed Jensen gently about how he hadn’t ever played much football. They took it easy on him, expected little of him and were rather decent about it. It was his father, panting lightly from exertion, sore after they lost another point to his uncle’s team that started the shit.

“Son,” he said. “If your boyfriend isn’t actually going to play maybe he should go cheerlead from the side.”

“Dad,” Jared said, “it’s just a game.”

“A game we’re losing,” his dad said, “do something with him.”

Jensen didn’t like anyone that told Jared what to do: he didn’t like Jeffery Dean at the diner, he didn’t like Jared’s professors, and he didn’t even like the rejection letters that Jared got in the mail or the bills that piled up on the inbox to the side of the door. He felt that anything that imposed rules or expectations on Jared undermined his authority and ownership. (Jared had tried training that out of Jensen and gotten nothing but fucked repeatedly for his trouble. Most of the time it didn’t even cause problems, except when Jeffery Dean happened to tell Jared to do something in front of Jensen.) 

“Don’t be so sore, Jerry,” his uncle called, “they don’t know how to play football in Vermont! And Jared never could play to save his own skin.”

Jensen was standing very still, not even sweating; hands on his hips and jacket zipped all the way up to his throat. He looked over at Chris who was lounging by the younger children that had come with the cousins. He gave Jensen an expression that clearly translated into ‘kill all humans’ and then Jensen pulled his zipper down and shrugged his jacket off. His shirt had long sleeves because his whole body was literally covered in scars but just for a brief second the sleeves pulled up and the tail end of those scars was right there for anyone to see. (Not that anyone was looking, but it was there.)

“Oh shit,” Jared mumbled to himself. “I’ll talk to him,” he told his dad and went over to Jensen, “you cannot kill anyone here. You cannot send anyone to the emergency room.”

“I’ll try,” was what Jensen promised him.

The next play was his uncle throwing the ball to one of the red-shirted cousins and Jensen caught the ball with a jump that seemed impossible and then ran it back to the goal, knocking two full grown (and fairly strong) men aside like they were cardboard cut outs. 

“Woah!” his cousin shouted after he picked himself up off the ground, “Jensen! You’ve been playing us.”

“We play football in Vermont,” Jensen said. He licked the edge of his lips and looked over at Jared’s uncle. Then he threw the football into the grass and walked back over to Jared.

“Ok,” Jared said, “that…actually makes me want to jump you.”

“I can’t tackle people on our team?” Jensen asked. He was doing a decent job not looking at Jared’s dad directly but it was still all there in his stiff shoulders and the clench of his hands against his hips.

“No,” Jared said.

Jensen seemed disappointed about that. Jared put a hand on him, slipped up over his shoulder to the back of his neck where the fine hairs there were bristled up just how they would have been if Jensen had been wolf’ed out. He brought their foreheads together and smiled at him, tried to be something calming to temper the growing aggravation in Jensen’s chest. 

“I love you,” Jared said quietly, “you’re doing really well.”

“I love you,” Jensen said back, without emotion, and then smiled back at him and brought one hand up to grip his wrist and then released it and turned back toward the game.

\--

After the football game outside, there was the football game inside. They all piled into the living room and drank beer (well everyone but Jensen who asked for water) and watched the pregame show. His father was in his favorite recliner and his Uncle Rob was in his usual chair and that left seven grown men, three grown women, (all the others were busy in the kitchen exchanging gossip and recipes) and several children to find places to sit on the floor and couch and love seat. Chris took up space at Jensen’s feet and the youngest children crawled on him like a jungle gym while he stayed still and let them. 

Most of the focus was on the game and the commentators and Jared leaned in heavy against Jensen and thought soothing-thoughts.

\--

Dinner was a messy affair that sprawled out from the kitchen to the back porch in little pods of people with plates and cups. The grown ups—his parents and their siblings—were all at the dinner table in the dining room and the rest of them just took up space wherever else there was room. Jared staked out a couple of spots in the kitchen with the youngest kids and his favorite girl cousin, Stacey, who took a shine to Jensen on the basis that she was also too damn shy to be a part of the family.

“They get easier to deal with,” Stacey told Jensen, “I mean, I’ve known them since birth and I’m just now learning how to put up with them.” She loved Chris too and thought he was just adorably gentle with the kids. 

Chris laid his head on Jared’s lap and bit his arm until he got scrapes from the table and once the kids found out he was feeding the dog, they all insisted on helping.

\--

Damon, one of Jared’s least annoying cousins, found his way into the kitchen under the pretense of checking on his son and then took up the space that Jack left when he left. Damon was Rob’s oldest boy and he had always been the one that defended Jared’s wolf obsession when the other cousins laid into him with all the glee that a bully has for tormenting a geek.

“It’s Jensen, right?” Damon said. He had a heaping plate of turkey and bread and a tall glass of iced tea with lemon slicing swimming in it. He was only half through chewing a piece of the turkey when he started talking and Jared had to bite back the automatic reaction to remind him that humans ate with their mouths closed. (So teaching a soul mate how to live in society was the same as raising a child in some respects.)

“Yes,” Jensen said, “and you’re Damon.”

Damon laughed, “ha, yes it is. If you can remember that with all these people around then I really should be ashamed of not even remembering your name.” He took a long drink and set it down, “so how did you two meet? I remember you met back when Jared was up north for college but how’d you meet the second time?”

“We ran into each other,” Jensen said. He had stopped eating to talk (because they both too so much concentration, a combination of silverware and translating wolf thoughts to human words). “Jared was out on a date with another man.”

“Oh,” Stacey said from the side. 

Jared laughed at her and the face she made at that, and the blush on her cheeks when she realized she’d made that noise out loud. “It’s just as scandalous as it sounds.”

“I didn’t like that man,” Jensen said. He looked over toward Jared but it was really at Chris who was right by Jared’s side. “I went over to say hello to Jared and ruined his date.”

“God, did you ever,” Jared said.

“You make me sick,” Damon said. He was grinning though, cutting into his chunk of turkey and bringing one of his fingers up to lick a stray bit of gravy off. 

“I think they’re sweet,” Stacey said. She stuck her tongue out at her brother when Damon rolled his eyes. 

“Why are we sweet?” Jensen asked.

“Because you love each other,” Stacey said, “and it shows.” 

“Like I said, disgusting.” Damon helped one of the kids rip their turkey apart and then went back to cutting his with the side of his fork. If he happened to see the perplexed look on Jensen’s face or the way Chris was telegraphing reassurance through his eyebrows he didn’t seem troubled by it.

\--

Things might have ended pretty decently if not for how Jared’s dad came into the kitchen for a refill and found the kids feeding the dog. Damon had left and Stacey had let it slide because it wasn’t her dog and there was plenty of food but Jared’s dad had never been any-good-at-all about letting things slide. 

He said, “stop feeding the dog. You can’t feed a dog table scrapes.”

“But Uncle Jared was doing it,” Gabe said. He had a stringy piece of turkey stretched out toward Chris’ mouth and Chris didn’t even bother to look shy about taking it, tongue catching at Gabe’s fingers and making the kid giggle. 

“Jared, stop feeding that dog table scrapes. This is why you couldn’t have a dog as a child; you would have been feeding it Twinkies and chocolate sauce. Dogs eat dog food and—for that matter—dogs belong outside while people are eating. You need to put that dog out.” His father had always been a lot closer to black-and-white and right-and-wrong with no gray areas or wiggle room. His law was as absolute as his wife allowed it be and on most things, that meant that he was always right and Jared had always followed the rules because they’d mostly-almost-always made sense to him.

Except, right now, he couldn’t put the dog out and Chris probably wouldn’t appreciate starving either. “Dad,” Jared said, “he’s fine. Go lay down, Whitelaw.”

Chris gave him the dirtiest look ever but he did what he was told, padded over and laid down by the fridge where he could see Jensen well enough to send messages.

“That’s not outside,” Jared’s dad said, “he shouldn’t be in here while people are eating.” He threw a bottle cap into the trash. He took a drink and then looked at him that same way he’d done when Jared was still twelve years old and complaining about taking out the trash. 

“He’s an adult,” Jensen said. The anger radiating out of him was turning into heartburn in Jared’s chest. The fact that he didn’t rip right out of his clothes and straight into full fur was a miracle in and of itself. 

“Excuse me?” Jared’s dad said. 

“Jared is an adult. It is our dog, it is not your dog. You will not tell us how to treat him.”

“I will in my house,” Jared’s dad said, “I don’t know how things are done in Vermont, but where I’m from you show a little more respect to your host.”

Chris groaned over by the fridge. Jared stood up because Jensen had stood up and put a hand on Jensen’s chest and felt the burning-heat of his skin through his clothes. (Fuck, any hotter and it felt like the buttons should have melted right off his shirt.) “Look, Dad,” Jared said, “we’ll all just go outside.”

“I don’t see why you’d have to go out with the dog. It’s a dog, Jared, put it out.” He was staring right at Jensen, doing some stupid alpha-male bullshit and Jared could feel the vibrating tension rising in Jensen. Where Jared’s dad was from, alpha-male meant whoever stared the longest and it was a matter of respect and some indefinable, abstract bullshit. Where Jensen was from it was ripping out the throats of anyone that challenged you because it your life depended on it.

“Oh Jerry,” his mother said, “there you—oh.” She stopped before she reached the staring line between Jensen and Jerry and bit her lip for a minute. “You two stop that right now. It’s Thanksgiving and this isn’t how you behave.”

Jensen couldn’t look away and Jared’s Dad would rather die than look away (and oh, how very likely that was looking now). Jared smiled nervously and then looked back at Chris who lifted his head and barked. It did nothing but made Stacey jump and then Chris made a motion like shrugging his dog shoulders and put his head down again.

“Ok then,” Jared said, “you know what—I’m tired of this. So if you two want to fight this out—go right ahead. I am going to take my food and my dog outside.” He picked up his plate and walked out of the kitchen.

“Jerry,” his mother said. That broke his father out of his asshole trance and made him look away and once that threat was handled, Jensen followed after Jared out to the backyard where the more sane members of the family were.

\--

Jensen was all but plastered against his side, face twisted into a scowl and staring at the ground like it, too, was a threat against his soul mate. Jared leaned in against him and held his plate in one hand and scooped his food up with the other. Eating, at this point, was just to keep up the pretense of normalcy. 

“Hey,” Jared whispered. 

Chris was laying right in front of their feet, huge body across their shoes as he watched everyone moving around with his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth. He turned his head around to look at him when he spoke and waited for more.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” Jensen said. He didn’t explain more than that but Chris gave Jared a look that seemed like it was trying to say, ‘see, I told you that you should have fucked him this morning’. 

“It’s just a little while longer,” Jared said quietly.

\--

People started leaving after dinner, making excuses about how they had a second family gathering to go to (because they were all so polite and didn’t want to mention the cold war going on between his father and his soul mate).

His cousin, Donnie, took him to one side and clapped him on the back, “hey man—I’ve been there before. You’re the only kid your Dad has and he’s just trying to make sure this Jensen guy is the real thing. You just have to wait it out and they’ll be fine in the end. You know your Dad he has to know he’s in charge of the situation.” Then it was hugs and agreeable thanks for the advice.

The cousins that were leaving all said good bye to Jensen like they’d never see him again and Jared chose to ignore that or go crazy. Jensen returned hugs and handshakes and handed out generic greeting card responses.

\-- 

His mother drove Aunt Lydia home because she always had given him and his father plenty of space to fight things out. It left Jared home alone with two werewolves and his father who was full on turkey, rumbling with indignation and fit to burst from having to walk away from a pissing competition over supposed disrespect.

Jared was in the kitchen washing dishes with Jensen drying them on a towel and Chris eating whatever bits and pieces of food he could find on the floor or out of the top of the trashcan.

“Please don’t hurt my father,” Jared said quietly. He could hear his father working his way to the kitchen and that could only mean that was coming to finish an early conversation.

“He is challenging me,” Jensen said. 

“Well, yeah,” Jared said, “but in a completely human way. Not like in a lets go outside and fight to the death kind of way. It’s just important to him that he—”

“He is not your alpha anymore,” Jensen said. Of course it was just that simple where Jensen was from because Jensen had been raised to believe that bitches were property and not equal partnership and once you took a mate the family that mate left behind was irrelevant.

“It’s hard for humans to let go,” Jared said. He couldn’t explain that because Jared had always loved his father (even when he was a difficult jerk like now) but Jensen had never been loved by anyone but the pack he’d been exiled with.

Chris grunted and then left the trash alone and flopped down in front of the fridge like a model (and hungry) citizen.

“He’s threatening my pack,” Jensen said again.

“For humans, pets aren’t considered pack. He doesn’t know that Chris is like your…kid or whatever.” They could both here his father coming closer to the door and Jensen didn’t respond and Jared drew in a sigh and tried to will himself to believe that it would all turn out okay.

\--

Jared’s Dad lurked around the kitchen for a matter of minutes before turning around and heading back toward the living room. He came back with stray cups and plates and a lot of trash piled up on top of the whole mess. He eyed the dog with a quiet flattening of his lips and then set the dishes down on the counter next to Jared.

“Thank you for doing the dishes, Jared,” his Dad said.

“No problem,” Jared said. He slipped the new dishes into the soapy water and looked out of the corner of his eye where Jensen was drying off a bowl with all of his concentration. 

Jared’s Dad left and came back with more dishes two more times before he finally stopped and cleared his throat. He’d managed to finally (finally) catch Jensen without a dish in his hand and took that as an open invitation to say his piece. “Jensen,” his Dad said (and it was every-so-slightly condescending). “I appreciate that you love my son and I’m going to believe that you just want what’s best for him but while you’re in my house I expect that you’ll show me some respect. I’ve lived just a few more years than you have.”

There it was, the condescending tone, the stare, the stance of an alpha male all fluffed out to make himself bigger-and-grander than he was because he was defending his territory and his pack and there was Jensen, some pretty-looking interloper trying to take authority away from Jerry fucking Padalecki.

There was a brief second, the minor catch of breath, where Jared was _sure_ that they were going to finish up Thanksgiving night by finding a nice place to bury his father. Then it was a sudden sense of vertigo in his head and Chris was up on all four paws barking as loud as he could and growling, fur bristling up all over his body as he darted forward and Jared’s father didn’t even have the time to turn his head and see what the hell was making the dog go insane before Jensen had knocked into him with human hands that were fast-tightening down into wolf-paws. Jared’s Dad hit the ground pinned under two hundred (ish) pounds of furious alpha wolf bared-teeth-snarling at him.

Chris hunched his shoulders and pulled his lips away from his teeth, issuing loud snarls like taunts and challenges. Jared really wanted to tell him to stop that because it was too late but the vertigo was making his head spin in crazy eddies inside his skull and his knees were giving out as he started wilting down to the ground.

“Jensen,” he managed to croak out, “you can’t—take—not for this.” Then the effort of talking was too damn much and he slouched right down against the cabinet fronts and watched his Dad shriek in fear with both hands up in defeat and eyes so wide it looked like they were going to roll right out of his face.

Chris was looking back and forth around the kitchen, jumped up to his human feet and leaned across Jared to grab the spray nozzle on the sink and pulled it out far enough to aim it right at Jensen’s face. “Hey, fuckface,” he said, “I said _don’t_ attack the human!”

Jensen barely flinched away from the cold spray, turned to look at it only because it caught him in the ear and snarled at Chris for the interruption. Chris turned the water off and pointed back at Jared with that white-knuckled fury he got any time the subject of mates came up and Jensen relaxed out of attack mode and the draining-leech of energy reversed until Jared was _coughing_ from the sudden surge of adrenaline.

“What the fuck?” Jared’s dad screamed from the floor now that the murderous wolf was away from his throat and over at Jared’s face licking apologetic stripes over his cheeks.

\--

His Mother came home sometime between Jensen wolfing out and Chris picking up the pants off the floor to pull them on over his naked ass. He reached down to grab Jared’s father’s hand and yanked him back up to his feet. He clapped one hand on his shoulder and stared at his face, wavering with him when Jared’s dad kind of almost wilted to one side. He got an arm around his Dad and picked him up and set him in the chair.

“I’m Chris,” he bothered to say, “not a dog.”

“No,” Jared’s Dad agreed.

“Just keep breathing,” Chris advised. Then he looked at the food piled up on the kitchen table and turned back to grab a plate and fork out of the clean dishes.

“Really?” Jared demanded at him.

“Shut up, you had like six plates and he’s not going to be coherent enough to ask questions for an hour.” He sat down in the chair at the opposite side of the table from his father and started pulling dishes toward him to fill his plate. 

Jensen was still worrying at Jared’s face like if he just licked him enough he’d convey enough apologies to be forgiven. And then there was Jared’s Mom in the doorway with her purse hanging off her elbow and her hands both pressed against her chest.

“Shit,” Jared whispered.

Chris looked up—some half-naked stranger with scars stretched all over his chest and neck and shoulders, down his back and arms—and smiled at her. “This is the most delicious shit I’ve ever eaten, Mrs. P. I can see where Jared gets his potential from.”

Jared’s Mom smiled weakly and then cleared her throat, “Jared, honey,” she said, “maybe you should tell me what’s going on now.”

\--

Jared’s Dad came to like waking up again in the living room (Jared carried him there) and blinked at his wife sitting in the chair across from him and Jensen sitting (as a wolf) in front of Jared with his head in his lap and his ears being thoroughly scratched and petted. Chris was on the floor with all of the leftovers piled into the turkey dish and the pretense of a fork mostly abandoned. 

“So,” Jared’s dad said, “Jensen’s a werewolf.” 

His Mom smiled, “honey, have a cookie.”

His dad noticed the plate on the side table and took one because they were cookie-cure-alls and he ate his way through most of it before he looked back at Jared and waited for an explanation.

“Technically,” Jared said, “they’re more like shape-shifters because they aren’t necessarily limited by the phases of the moon. But, yeah, they’re werewolves and I—might—be—one—too.”

“Oh, of course,” Jared’s dad said. He picked up a cookie off the plate and handed it to him, “have a cookie.”

“I know it seems crazy,” Jared said.

“Honey, we’ve seen your boyfriend turn into a wolf and your dog turn into a man. I think we’ve covered crazy and have moved onto completely insane.” She was eating a cookie herself and smiling indulgently at Chris as he ripped the very last of the meat away from the turkey’s cooked bones. “So how long have you been a werewolf?”

“Me?” Jared said, “uh—a year and a half or so? Jensen and Chris have always been werewolves. They were born that way.”

“In Vermont?” his dad asked.

“No,” Chris said, “we made that shit up. Look—lets skip all the crap here. What you need to know is that Jensen is a real live alpha wolf and all your ridiculous human posturing for dominance pissed him off and he’s not human enough to ignore his instincts. He loves your son and he is inescapably tied to him for the rest of their lives because they’re soul mates. And this is really good turkey.”

“So, when you said that your soul mate broke your heart—you really meant that?” his mother said.

“Yes,” Jared said, “and what he said about not being ready was true too.”

“When were you going to tell us all of this?” his dad asked.

“Preferably never,” Jared said. He rubbed the back of his neck and Jensen made an irritable noise about how he was no longer being petted. “It’s not that relevant? It doesn’t change who I am and I didn’t know how to tell you because I mean—you were never that thrilled about the wolf thing to start with, Dad and Mom you were just so happy when I told you I had a boyfriend I didn’t want to ruin that with the whole soul mate thing.”

“Ruin it?” his mother repeated.

“Soul mates don’t have a choice,” Chris said, “like, Jared has no choice but to love Jensen because they were born soul mates and he had this whole six year freak out about that before he gave in.”

“Yes, I can see how that would ruin it.” She sat back in her chair and picked up another cookie and nibbled off a bite. “But he’s good to you?” His mother was a plump slow-aging lady but she had a look on her face like she would find a way to take Jensen down if he ever hurt her son.

“Yes,” Jared said.

“And how do you fit in?” Jared’s dad asked Chris. He was slow-getting-over-the-shock and moving back into indignant (with just an edge of fear at the corners of his voice). 

“I’m part of the pack,” Chris said.

“Wolves live in packs,” Jared explained, “and Chris was part of Jensen’s pack. It’s like a family unit and our pack is Jensen and I, Gen and Sandy and Chris and Chris’ sister Alona.”

“Are Gen and Sandy werewolves now too?” Jared’s Mom asked. She asked it suddenly, all at once afraid that their lives might have been ruined too.

“No. Alona is but the girls are still just themselves. It’s not like they go around recruiting people to be werewolves,” Jared said (and it was only a slight lie), “it’s just that I became one because Jensen was one and it was just easier if we were both the same—since he can’t be a human, it was the best way.”

“So you changed for him,” his father said.

Oh and his father didn’t know the half of it. “I made that decision,” Jared said, “not him. He didn’t even ask me to make that decision. We could have made it work how we were but I wanted to do this and I don’t regret it. I’ve got enhanced sight and hearing and I’m stronger and faster than I was before.”

“Plus ten years on life expectancy too,” Chris added from the floor. He was still gorging on mashed potatoes and stuffing with the stripped-bare turkey bones set to the side. 

There was a long pause after that bit of information and Jensen went over to the pan of food to sniff around it and started lapping up the mashed potatoes while Chris made a disappointed noise and let him. 

“I think that’s all I can take for tonight,” Jared’s Dad said, “we’ll have to pick this up in the morning. Honey, are you ready for bed?”

“Of course,” she said. Then she got up and smiled uncertainly at Chris and then at Jared before she slipped an arm around his dad’s back and his dad put his arm over her shoulders. “Make sure you clean up when you’re finished and please lock the doors.”

“I will,” Jared said.

\--  
They finished the dishes after Jensen licked the dish clean and Chris took over washing them for him while Jared mechanically dried and put them away. It was dark-dark-dark outside so they went out back and Chris retrieved his cigarettes and smoked while Jensen rolled in the grass and went around the investigating the yard and stalked a fat squirrel. 

“They’re not going to tell anyone, are they?” Chris asked. He picked at his fingernails while he smoked (his second already) and nodded up toward the house behind them.

“No,” Jared said, “at least, I can’t imagine that they would. Maybe disown me, maybe pretend that they never heard any of this? But tell someone? No.” He tipped his head back and tried to shake off the terrible weariness of the day and it clung at the edges of his clothes like weights pinned into place.

“Hey, go roll in the dirt with your girlfriend. It’ll help.”

Jared had given up on normalcy a few months back and he’d given up on fighting good advice a while before that. Chris took his clothes when he pulled them off and set them up on the table next to the cup he was using as an ashtray. Jensen trotted over happy-as-ever when Jared shifted. He was flirty with his tale and grinning with his wolf-face at just the sight of him.

“Your cousin was right, though,” Chris said, “you are disgusting.”

\--

The morning was bitter reality outside the edges of their puppy pile. Chris groaned at being disrupted from his sleep and moved his head off Jared’s back and shifted his body so he was a lonely pile of one. Jared stood up and stretched his wolf body and then hopped down to the ground and Jensen barked at him.

Jared shifted back to his human skin and found a pair of jeans to pull on. “Look, you stay here and keep your damn mouth shut. I’m going to go see if my Mama is awake and if all of this shit is going to ruin my life in more than just the ways it already has. Got it?”

Jensen yipped at that and then laid his head down with a whine and a quiet growl of objection at being told what to do. (Oh, but there was nobody-nobody in the world except Jared that could command Jensen to do a damn thing.)

\--

His Mama was in the kitchen with a strong cup of coffee and a stack of pancakes. She smiled at him when he shuffled into the room and got up to wrap her arms around him. He hugged her and he couldn’t help but bury his face against her shoulder, drag in the smell of dryer sheets and vanilla and _home_ before he was bawling like a child because it had been so-fucking-long since he’d even really thought things could really-be-okay.

“Oh sweetie,” his mother said with her arms clutching at his body and pulling him as close as she could manage. She held him and let him cry and he pulled away with a hot-wet-face and a red nose and snot dripping down to his lip that he caught with his back of his hand. “You great big idiot,” she said with her hand cupped at his cheek. “You think there’s anything in the world that could make stop loving my son?”

“No,” he whispered. He didn’t say, ‘but you don’t know what I’ve done, you don’t know what I’ve seen, you don’t know how much I needed you for so long and couldn’t bring myself to tell you the truth because it was so fucking ugly and so fucking twisted and so fucking much I couldn’t even bring myself to talk about it because it might have killed me’. Then he smiled and she pulled him down to knock their foreheads together and let him go again. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

“Don’t you dare apologize to me. I might not know anything about what you’ve been through but I know you and I know that you did what you thought was best. It’s your father that you’ve got to worry about and you know he won’t come along easy and I’m not going to push him just like you’re not going to push Jensen. We’re not werewolves or pack but we’re still a family and your father is still the head of that family.”

“Yeah,” Jared said. He sat in a chair at the table and eyed the pancakes that smelled like sweet-forgiving-heaven. “It’s such a mess.”

“It always is,” his Mom said. She put a plate in front of him and then a fork and the warm syrup from the stove. “That’s why you’ve got to keep at it. You’ll see—this Thanksgiving? This Christmas? It’ll be hard but it’ll get easier every time.” She sat down across from him and smiled at his disbelief at how she was already planning to drag him back for more.

“Where is Dad?”

“He’s at Uncle Rob’s. They had plans already and it’s for the best. He said to tell you that he loved you and he’ll see you at Christmas time.” Her smile was a little pained there because Jared was sure there was more than that. Ugly things thrown around about animals and bad behavior and maybe one or two choice comments about Jared’s ability to handle his mate. He didn’t want to know the particulars because he’d seen his dad rage on disrespect before and he knew how it went like a favorite poem memorized for life. 

“Yeah,” Jared said, “it’s probably for the best. Jensen’s still riled up.”

His mom nodded. They ate together, making small talk about his stories and rejection letters until she set her coffee cup down with a click. “Jensen and…Chris? They were raised in the wild?”

Jared nodded and she must have respected that it wasn’t his story to tell because she let it drop at that. She packed him a feast for the road back up this house and made him swear to call her when he made it there safe. 

\--

They left his house with Jensen as a wolf in the backseat, curled up and half-asleep and Chris in the passenger seat wearing Jensen’s clothes with a heavy book crushing his lap and a fresh pack of cigarettes in the cup holder next to him.

“This could have gone worse,” Chris said.

Jared snorted at that, “my Dad’s pissed, my Mom’s scared of you and we still have to come back for Christmas. Explain to me how this could have—you know what? Don’t explain to me how this couldn’t have gone worse.”

“Well you’ve met Jensen’s parents, right? It could have gone worse.” Chris grinned at him and Jared punched him in the arm as he put the car in reverse and they all waved at his mother up on the porch as they drove away.

“I love your Mom, though,” Chris said, “fuck that woman can cook.”

Jensen’s bark in the back seat was an echoing agreement to that sentiment and Jared reached over to turn up the stereo and ignored them both for the whole ride home.


End file.
